TRIGGERnometry - August 23, 2024


Konstantin Kisin vs. NBC Journalist on Elon Musk, Riots and Civil War


Episode Stats

Length

25 minutes

Words per Minute

152.5352

Word Count

3,965

Sentence Count

236

Hate Speech Sentences

13


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Elon Musk tweeted that a civil war in Europe is inevitable, but what does that mean for the rest of the world? What does it mean for our world, and what does it have to do with Elon Musk?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 No amount of faith in the mainstream media survives first contact with the mainstream media.
00:00:05.440 When they write about something or someone you know, or worse still, write about you,
00:00:10.240 it becomes immediately obvious that the objective is not to seek or reveal the truth.
00:00:14.880 It's to advance an agenda. If this sounds a little out there or conspiratorial,
00:00:19.520 I understand, because that's how I used to think as well. The job of journalists is to expose
00:00:24.780 government corruption, corporate malfeasance, and report the news, right? Last week, I was
00:00:30.040 contacted by an NBC journalist for an interview about Elon Musk's comments about what is happening
00:00:35.100 in Europe. What follows is the full, unedited recording of that conversation. Listen for
00:00:40.580 yourself and see if you still think these people are neutral observers who believe that their job
00:00:45.680 is to objectively report on the truth. It's important to understand this is not about this
00:00:50.520 individual journalist. I don't want people having a go at him, and I'm not having a go at him.
00:00:55.320 The issue here is the entire media machine and the way that it operates. Check it out for yourself.
00:01:03.080 Hello, how are you? I'm fantastic. How are you?
00:01:07.880 All right. I'm also thank you. Thank you for getting the time to speak with me. Sure.
00:01:14.920 Yeah. So, um, I guess there was a tweet from, like, it was last October, uh, where, uh, it was,
00:01:24.520 it was right after, um, the terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israel. Uh, there were protests in Europe,
00:01:32.200 uh, uh, some of them supporting Palestinians. Uh, you were, again, you were tweeting about that,
00:01:38.840 and then Luck responded to, if, if current trends continue civil war in Europe is inevitable. Um,
00:01:48.600 and then, of course, he, he was, he tweeted something similar, uh, a week ago, and got into
00:01:53.640 this backing board with, uh, uh, Geir Sturmer, uh, and, and others, on sort of a similar subject of
00:02:01.400 whether the war in Europe is inevitable. I think that same word is inevitable.
00:02:06.200 Um, and I guess really, I'm just sort of curious about your reaction, uh, to sort of,
00:02:13.800 you know, his sort of exceeded prediction that is, um, is, um, is inevitable. Do you think it's
00:02:22.200 accurate? Do you think he is onto some things? Do you think, do you disagree, or what's your reaction?
00:02:27.480 He's 100% right.
00:02:29.160 What do you think, uh, what do you think that would look like?
00:02:36.200 I don't think anybody knows. What we do know is, if this continues, then there will be,
00:02:43.880 I don't know if civil war is necessarily the way that it will go. No one knows how these things go
00:02:48.760 in history, but, uh, the fact that he's pointing to the, the very simple observation that societies
00:02:58.360 in many European countries are incredibly divided, uh, economically stagnant, have imported large
00:03:05.160 numbers of people from a completely different culture and religion, um, and the demographic side
00:03:12.840 of these conversations obviously matters as well. If you put all that together and you play the movie
00:03:17.800 forward, it's not an unreasonable prediction. Nobody knows how the future will pan out,
00:03:23.000 but based on what we are seeing with our own eyes now, it's quite possible.
00:03:28.840 Okay. Um, you know, I guess about 10 months or so have passed since
00:03:34.840 Musk tweeted that. Um, I don't think we're in a civil war now, but do you think we are? Um,
00:03:41.640 and if, if we're not, you know, um, at what point do you say that must be wrong about that, whichever,
00:03:48.040 or, um, sorry, are you under the impression that Elon Musk is suggesting that a civil war is imminent?
00:03:57.160 Uh, you did not mean the word. No, and he doesn't mean imminent. He said on current trends.
00:04:03.080 So he's talking about very long-term trends that happen over a long period of time.
00:04:09.320 Nobody knows whether it will happen 10 years from now or 30 years from now, and no one's
00:04:14.280 able to predict that. What he's looking at is the direction of travel. And what he's saying,
00:04:19.880 if you go to New York and you drive west from New York, eventually you're going to get to California.
00:04:25.720 That's all he's saying, right? So when you, when you ask me, forgive me, I'm not being rude, but
00:04:32.680 I don't understand how you can ask me if I think we're in the civil war now. Obviously not. A civil
00:04:38.760 war would look like tens of thousands of people killing each other on a daily basis. We're obviously
00:04:44.440 not in that position and no one is saying that we are. And by the way, something I think it's
00:04:49.720 important for you to, to remember is that when we talked about, uh, those comments he made 10 months
00:04:55.800 ago, you said there were some people who were protesting for the Palestinians. Actually, the
00:05:01.560 thing that many of us were reacting to at the time was the fact that there were protests on the street
00:05:07.000 of major European cities before Israel had even retaliated. So they were not support. They were not
00:05:14.520 there to protest for Palestine. They were there to celebrate the mass slaughter that just had just
00:05:20.200 taken place in Israel. So I think it's important to keep that in mind. That shares for sure. Um,
00:05:27.880 do you think Kluska is using this term civil war in a, in a sort of classic sense of civil war where
00:05:35.160 there is a rebel group that is seeking to overthrow the government or is he thinking just more
00:05:41.880 generally about three violence or terrorist attacks or other kinds of political violence?
00:05:48.040 I have absolutely no idea. You're going to have to ask him.
00:05:53.480 Do you think there will be like a rebel group that is armed and organized and trying to overthrow
00:05:59.480 the UK government? I have absolutely no idea. As I said to you earlier, nobody knows
00:06:06.120 what exactly it's going to look like. In the metaphor I gave you, when you drive west from New York,
00:06:11.800 you will eventually get to California, but how exactly you're going to get there, which roads you're
00:06:15.800 going to take, what is going to happen to you on the way, et cetera. Not, not nobody knows.
00:06:21.080 What Elon Musk is doing is pointing out the fact that Europe is moving in a particular direction
00:06:26.680 on demographics, on economics, on multiculturalism. And these are all perfectly valid points.
00:06:32.840 Uh, doesn't mean he knows or is able to predict exactly how it's going to pan out. Nobody can.
00:06:37.480 But I'm saying that, you know, a civil war by definition is a rebel, armed rebel group.
00:06:46.600 No, no, it's not. Not even remotely by definition is a civil war that. A civil war is two people,
00:06:53.960 two groups of people within one society fighting each other on a national scale.
00:07:00.520 Yeah. But I think by definition of one of those parties is going to be the incumbent government.
00:07:08.440 I don't know why you know that. We, we have absolutely no idea what it could or couldn't look
00:07:13.800 like in the future. I mean, if you, if you look up, you know, any definition of civil war in academic
00:07:21.400 literature, it is incumbent government battling at the belligerent, battling at least one armed rebel
00:07:31.080 group. Well, the, the, the, the rebelliousness of the group or otherwise is kind of a historical
00:07:38.680 issue, right? There are some people, some civil wars that were won by the people you might describe
00:07:43.320 as a civil, there's a rebel group. They wouldn't consider themselves as a rebel group. They would
00:07:47.800 consider themselves a portion of society that had a problem with the other portion of society.
00:07:53.880 Uh, I don't understand why we're, we're getting bogged down in this.
00:07:58.120 Well, you know, because, because you choose this, this term very specifically civil war and it's,
00:08:04.040 and I get that you personally agree with them. Do you think that like, are the immigrants going to
00:08:10.520 arm themselves and organize and overthrow Westminster?
00:08:14.120 The, the immigrants?
00:08:16.120 The other way around.
00:08:18.120 I am an immigrant myself. What are you talking about?
00:08:23.640 Well, I'm trying to understand the, the prediction of the civil war.
00:08:28.760 Okay.
00:08:29.240 Um, and, does that, you know, does that-
00:08:33.560 Elon Musk is an immigrant to America. Are you seriously suggesting that he's concerned about
00:08:38.520 immigrants taking up arms against the government?
00:08:41.080 I'm trying to understand what you're saying. So, he tweeted about this eight times in the past year.
00:08:47.160 Yeah.
00:08:47.640 Saying that, I headed to a civil war in Europe, civil war, it's inevitable. Um,
00:08:55.560 and generally what people mean by a civil war, is that there is an armed group that wants to overthrow the
00:09:03.720 government. So, uh, or I guess the succession type situation. Um, and it would be the political,
00:09:14.280 I guess, of course.
00:09:15.400 I don't know, as I said to you repeatedly, but quite often civil wars, as you said yourself, happen in
00:09:20.920 the situations of succession when there isn't a widely accepted particular government. So,
00:09:27.800 civil war is a term that people use that covers quite a number of eventualities. But I don't,
00:09:33.720 most of all, I don't understand why you're asking me what Elon Musk may or may not think.
00:09:40.440 Well, because, because you were in a conversation with him.
00:09:42.680 Okay.
00:09:43.480 Okay.
00:09:44.040 And I think your reply, actually, was that, um, civil war, someone will fight back,
00:09:49.640 based on the current evidence. I'm not sure that will happen.
00:09:52.760 Right.
00:09:55.480 Uh, I get from the FQs. Who do you think should fight back?
00:10:00.840 Are you, like, forgive me, are you under the impression that either I or Elon Musk want a civil war?
00:10:09.080 No, I know.
00:10:10.280 So then why would you ask me who I think should fight back? I don't think anyone should fight back,
00:10:14.840 because I don't want a civil war. I don't want anyone to be fighting anyone.
00:10:20.440 Okay. So, I guess who would fight back?
00:10:24.840 It depends who would be doing the attacking. I have no idea.
00:10:29.320 Okay.
00:10:32.120 Um, all right, Jeff, if I have any other questions for you.
00:10:35.560 Okay.
00:10:36.120 Do you, do you think that Musk, by talking about this as often as he has,
00:10:43.560 is he increasing the risk of violence?
00:10:46.520 I think he's decreasing the risk of violence, because what he's attempting to do,
00:10:52.200 in exactly the way that I'm attempting to do, is to say people, say to people, rather,
00:10:57.480 do not carry on driving off the cliff. This is not a good thing to do, because if we keep doing that,
00:11:03.160 we're going to end up in a worse place. So, if people actually pay attention and listen to people
00:11:08.440 like him and take that into account and start acting differently and implementing different kinds
00:11:14.040 of policies, that would massively reduce the risk of a civil war, which is precisely what he's trying
00:11:19.560 to do to reduce that risk when he's predicting that it will happen if we carry on down the path
00:11:25.720 that we're going.
00:11:29.560 What do you think the demographics of the UK should be?
00:11:35.800 Excuse me?
00:11:38.280 What do you think the demographics of the UK should be?
00:11:42.600 I don't understand the question.
00:11:45.480 You mentioned earlier about, about how a lot of this was about demographics.
00:11:49.720 Yeah.
00:11:50.280 Changing demographics.
00:11:51.240 Yeah.
00:11:53.960 Should the demographics remain the same, or what should the government's policy be about demographics?
00:12:00.280 I don't know that the government has a policy about demographics, nor am I
00:12:04.280 suggesting that there should be one. What I'm saying to you is, when you have groups of people
00:12:09.880 who don't share a culture living in the same space, in which their sense of national identity
00:12:16.440 is being eroded, and they're not encouraged to think of themselves as British first, and everything
00:12:21.320 else second, or American first, and everything else second, you create the potential for inter-ethnic
00:12:27.880 violence. And we already have it on the streets of Britain. And it's not just white people or Muslims,
00:12:34.120 it's Muslims versus Sikhs, it's Muslims versus Hindus, etc, etc. So, when you have large numbers of people
00:12:42.040 come to a place in a small period of time from different cultural backgrounds who may not even
00:12:46.920 speak the same language, who don't share the same religion, it is natural that those tensions are going
00:12:53.400 to be there. So, it's not a question of what I think should be the demographics. What we're pointing
00:12:58.440 out is a policy of open-door mass immigration combined with a policy where we have 40,000 people
00:13:05.960 coming to the country illegally every year is not working. That's the point we're making. It's not
00:13:12.520 a question of should it be that or should it be this. It's a point that when you do this,
00:13:17.240 the inevitable outcome is inter-ethnic tension.
00:13:22.360 Okay. Could you elaborate at all on sort of the sort of cultural, I forget the phrase
00:13:33.400 you were just using about the culture of the people who are providing immigrants and refugees.
00:13:40.280 It sounds like you think there's not a good fit for the existing culture of the UK.
00:13:45.800 It's not that they are not a good fit. It's that different cultures are different. They have
00:13:50.760 different values. They have different levels of compatibility. It's not that one is necessarily bad,
00:13:56.680 although some cultures are worse than others for sure. It's the fact that coexisting together
00:14:01.720 takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of effort. And in this society that increasingly fails to do that,
00:14:08.920 does not encourage people to integrate, does not encourage them to live with other people who are
00:14:14.280 not like them, but rather allows them to live in pockets in which they don't actually engage with
00:14:19.240 the broader British public. That can cause tensions, and it already is.
00:14:23.320 So what specifically do you think to assimilate or integrate more that they're currently doing?
00:14:36.360 Well, as a very simple example, I used to live in a part of East London that I think is over 40% Bangladeshi.
00:14:44.200 When I went to my doctor in that area, I was given a leaflet that had been translated into about 50 languages.
00:14:51.240 So what that tells me is there are quite a lot of people living in that area, as there are in many
00:14:57.000 other parts of the UK, that don't even bother to learn the language. And they're not being encouraged or
00:15:03.320 helped to do so. Now, it's very difficult to integrate with other people when you don't even have a common
00:15:09.320 language.
00:15:12.600 Okay. Anything else that's on the subject that you'd like to add?
00:15:18.600 Only that I think your line of questioning is very strange. Elon Musk is not saying anything other
00:15:28.440 that we should not pursue policies that are bad for our country. That includes bad for the people
00:15:35.400 on all sides of every cultural difference and everything else. A country that has strife is a
00:15:41.640 bad place to be for everybody. And what he's attempting to do is to encourage people in Europe not to go down that path.
00:15:50.360 So, let me give you a little more context of what I'm writing about. So, I've been asking
00:15:57.480 other people about Bosque traditions in the Civil War. I've told the one person who said that it's
00:16:05.080 a dog whistle, a sort of coded language about Ritz, and that Bosque is, although he doesn't explicitly
00:16:17.320 call for the Civil War, that rhetoric created a little difference between repeatedly predicting one
00:16:25.560 saying it's unavoidable and...
00:16:28.200 He's not saying, but this is the difference. He's not saying it's unavoidable.
00:16:32.520 He said the exact opposite. He said, if we continue to do what we are doing. That's the same as someone
00:16:39.640 saying, if we continue to drive off this cliff, we're gonna fall off it. It's not the same as
00:16:45.000 wanting us to fall off the cliff. On the contrary, he's imploring us not to drive off the cliff.
00:16:53.160 So, that I think is important to say. Then the other point, sorry, just to finish what I'm saying,
00:16:59.720 on this idea that he's concerned about the race of the people involved. Elon Musk is on record saying
00:17:08.680 repeatedly that he is pro-more immigration as long as it's legal and beneficial to the host country.
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00:17:47.480 So, a couple of points there. So, when he tweeted at you, last October, he said that current trend continues.
00:18:00.760 But more recently, he has not included that qualification. He has just said
00:18:06.920 it was a tweet a couple weeks ago with whom Civil War is inevitable.
00:18:11.080 Yeah. Which makes it, you know, he's not both, I guess. He's saying it is inevitable.
00:18:15.560 Well, yeah, if you take those two things together, what I think he's saying is,
00:18:21.480 I've been warning about this for many, many years, as he has been, as I have been.
00:18:26.280 And when you see riots of the scale and nature that we just saw in the UK, when you see hundreds of
00:18:32.920 armed men, both white thugs and Muslim thugs on the streets of the same cities attempting to fight
00:18:42.360 each other, that is yet another sign that we're heading down the wrong track.
00:18:47.560 So, if he's now convinced that, given the current government that we have and the broader direction
00:18:54.920 of travel in the UK, culturally and politically, right, we've just had 14 years of a conservative
00:19:00.280 government that hasn't done anything about any of these issues and, in fact, has made them worse.
00:19:04.200 So, if you take the comparison with when he was talking and now, he could be thinking,
00:19:12.120 you know, this is continuing to get worse and I just don't see anyone on the political scene
00:19:17.720 who's going to turn this around. And if that's how he's thinking, again, he's 100% right.
00:19:22.520 Okay. Um, one other thing, I mean, um, speaking about the reason of violence in the UK, um,
00:19:33.640 most of it was perpetrated by anti-immigrant forces. Should we be more concerned about violence
00:19:44.840 on there, uh, by them or more concerned about violence by immigrants?
00:19:50.120 I, I do not understand why you keep framing this as immigrants.
00:19:54.440 Um, migration, actually, no, no, no, the violence was not the, the, sorry, what the, when I said
00:20:07.320 there were gangs on the street with knives attacking people, it was not Portuguese people
00:20:14.040 or Ukrainians or Hong Kongers. Most of those people were British born. They're not immigrants.
00:20:25.000 So, I guess my, my question is, uh,
00:20:28.120 uh, he critics, uh, uh, do you think one side is more likely to turn to violence than another
00:20:43.080 in the immigration debate?
00:20:44.440 Well, as I just explained to you that we just saw on the streets that the, there is a willingness
00:20:52.360 on both sides to become aggressive and threatening and to carry weapons, right? So yes, in this
00:21:04.040 particular instance, the riots were anti, those rioters were anti-immigration, a lot of them,
00:21:11.400 and many of them would have just been there because they like to burn things down or blow
00:21:16.200 shit up because they don't have a job, right?
00:21:18.120 People are burning down. Wow.
00:21:20.840 Uh, I don't believe anyone burned down a mosque, no.
00:21:25.560 Um, I think if you, if you look at the view, that's fine.
00:21:31.320 Let me look it up right now.
00:21:32.520 Yeah, so nobody burned down a mosque.
00:21:40.200 You really should check your facts.
00:21:43.960 Maybe a, maybe a tax on a mosque is just more accurate term. Maybe not burned down, but,
00:21:49.320 um, there are, there weren't tax on a mosque.
00:21:51.640 Yeah, people threatened most, mostly to burn down a mosque, which is a terrible thing to do.
00:21:56.680 Um, but we also had riots the week prior, which were immigrant descended people burning down
00:22:07.480 police cars and police buses, etc. So this is the point I'm trying to make to you repeatedly.
00:22:13.560 There's violence happening from different areas, and that is what Elon Musk is concerned about.
00:22:19.640 He's not saying this particular one group is the threat and we must all focus on it.
00:22:25.640 He's saying the situation overall is not a good situation.
00:22:29.960 Do you think he, um, so one, one reason that I'm calling you is because, um,
00:22:39.560 Elon Musk hasn't really spoken about this. Uh, he's had these sporadic tweets,
00:22:45.000 um, predicting a civil war, but he hasn't really spoken in depth, I don't believe, about
00:22:51.240 this, this idea. Have you heard him talk in greater detail about this, or do you think he said?
00:22:57.640 I don't know Elon Musk personally, so I've only heard what you've heard.
00:23:03.960 Okay. Uh, well, to be clear, I have also researched him, um, asking for
00:23:11.320 clarification on, on what he means when he's, when he's predicting a civil war and, um,
00:23:19.560 and, uh, Given some of the questions you've been asking me, I, I'm not,
00:23:24.680 I'm not positive that he's going to want to speak to you. You don't seem like you're coming at this
00:23:28.840 from an angle of curiosity. You seem like you're, you've already got a story and you're just trying
00:23:33.480 to write that story.
00:23:36.440 Which, which questions do you mean specifically?
00:23:39.240 Um, I, most of the questions you've asked me.
00:23:41.640 I mean, just, it's just, um, I apologize if you've gotten that question, but what I
00:23:47.320 intend is to, I feel like I've been asking very open-ended questions about...
00:23:51.320 No, you've been suggesting answers to, you've been asking me, is it about this? Or is it because
00:23:57.240 he's concerned about race? Or is it because of immigrants or whatever?
00:24:00.360 Right? Which is completely misframing this entire conversation.
00:24:04.360 And you keep putting things to me like some idiot told you that Elon Musk wants a civil war.
00:24:10.440 What a moronic thing to say. Why would you even bring that up?
00:24:13.800 Do you honestly think Elon Musk wants people to be murdering each other en masse in Europe?
00:24:21.080 That's what Elon Musk wants.
00:24:22.280 Right. Now you've got a word in my mouth.
00:24:24.760 Am I?
00:24:28.600 Yep. Yep, I did.
00:24:30.040 You said to me, I've spoken to somebody who said, this is a dog whistle, and this is what he's,
00:24:36.440 he's trying to say it because he wants that outcome. He's trying to encourage violence.
00:24:40.680 I quoted that to you because...
00:24:44.760 I know. Why? Why would you quote some idiot? Why would you even include that in your conversation
00:24:49.320 of the story? It's a preposterous thing to assume about somebody.
00:24:53.160 An expert in extremism and political violence who works at a university.
00:24:57.640 So what? It's a preposterous thing to suggest. You think Elon Musk, whose mission is to build
00:25:05.880 spaceships to take us to another planet for the sole reason that we could preserve humanity
00:25:11.640 across multiple planets. That guy, what he's deeply, deeply wants is a civil war in Europe,
00:25:17.800 and that's what he's trying to encourage. And just because this person went to university,
00:25:21.960 you think that makes that a legitimate point of view? It's absurd.
00:25:25.960 I mean, the question I'm trying to answer is,
00:25:27.880 why does Elon Musk seem to spend so much time reading and thinking about civil war?
00:25:34.840 Because he's really, really concerned about it.
00:25:37.640 All right. Okay. Well, that's, that's my, that's my question, really, is why, why is he doing that?
00:25:45.160 And I feel like you give me an answer. So do I.
00:25:47.880 Peace.
00:25:57.640 You